So I suited up, made sure my Beretta M9 was loaded, and went to the rear hatch. It opened without issue and the airlock was clear. I let the air cycle before setting foot outside. The outer hatch sealed behind me with a clunk and a hiss. It’d only open with the code I had set upon my arrival.

A quick scan and I was out from the overhang. Soft ground sluiced under my boots, sucking at the heels. It looked so bleak. So colorless and bland. The sky an empty gray. Like it was forever caught before a storm. My own breathing rang in my ears through the mask.

Someone screamed and I turned to see one of the scavengers run at me with a piece of heavy looking wood. Three shots rang out. Right in the ten ring. Hostile down. He groaned and spat blood as I resumed my search. It wasn’t too far to the other hatch. I hadn’t even wondered why there was already someone here.

Something hit the back of my head.

Darkness.

I woke up hog tied. My vest was gone as was my gun. I managed to glance around without too much movement. We were somewhere dryer. Possibly on top of the bunker itself. There were three figures sitting by a fire nearby. The sun’s down. I must have been out all day and into the next. What did he HIT me with?

I can hear them now.

“You idiot. You weren’t supposed to brain him. Now we can’t get in there,” One of them admonished.

The other responds, probably the one that hit me, “Yeah but he shot Brian! Killed him right there!”

“The moron ran at him with a piece of wood. Didn’t I explain we needed to lure him out and get the drop?” the leader, presumably, explains.

The last is a big one, not a lot of meat, just a tall build. He speaks, “Doesn’t matter. Brian was dick. Tastes fuckin’ terrible, too. We got the guy.”

A little shadow walked up to the three and sat next to the leader. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get inside, Daddy.”

May. She sat down and took of a piece of the meat roasting over the fire. The leader patted her on the head and said, “That’s okay, little petal. You got him out, at least. Isn’t your fault he’s got only a little soul.”

I’m not sure whether to be sick or angry. I tried to move my hands but a pain in my skull forced a moan out. Of course they heard it and of course they walked over to me.

“Hey, soldier. I didn’t think we’d get you out of there without actually killing my little petal. Smart of you to close that vault. Too bad, though, because you’re gonna tell me how to open it.”

Well…shit.

A new dawn awaits; I want to rise above it. Beyond death, life, old, new – beyond this doomed world and all that it ever was. The sun greets me at the apex of the tower. Here, a single glowing orb resting above the infinity below me illuminates everything, and for the first time I can see this entire world as it is. I am the last man. I stand above the apotheosis of human achievement, for I am all that remains.

I am the Omega.

Cold water splashes my face and I’m jarred back into consciousness.

Rain trickles in from a hole in the roof, everything now cold and damp. I patch it with some duct tape for the moment; I’ll weld a plate over it tomorrow. Outside, acid rain mixing with ash. Toxic black sludge. The Geiger counter clipped onto my coat reads nominal levels, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

In the morning, I scavenge some metal plates from a nearby building and spark up the welder that I rigged to a couple of car batteries and an old transformer from a microwave oven. The weld is crude, but effective, and the hole in the roof is no longer a problem.

Moving on now. The road before me is wrought with the suburban sprawl of the Midwest. Exploration serves more than the mere acquisition of supplies; with entertainment in such short supply, I look to my forays into abandoned buildings to keep me occupied.

I see the road sign to an old pharmacy and park a fair distance away. Before I leave my car, I check my weapon; squatters are common in areas such as these and I can expect resistance to my presence. I take my time getting up to the pharmacy, making sure I stay out of sight, and take a minute to examine the front door before entering. A few minutes of searching reveals a safety catch to a booby trap inside. I use it as I open the door, and follow the wire to a cinder block hanging overhead, my flashlight revealing the dried blood belonging to intruders far less cautious than myself.

In the storage area, the sight of pharmaceuticals reminds me of my days in medical school. Old medications, most expired. Pills of every size, shape, and color. A controlled substances cabinet broken open, long ransacked of the painkillers inside.

Shuffling behind me. Someone’s coming.

She had had a nightmare. I sat at the screens and hummed her a lullaby until she could fall asleep again. Then I moved my bed into the lab so I could more quickly respond. She woke me up the next morning singing some little song she was probably making on the fly.

Now I get up and hit the intercom to say, “Good morning, May. You sleep okay?”

She starts coughing again but pulls herself up to the intercom and responds, “Ok. I’m cold.”

I rub my face and the back of my neck, trying to ignore what she said. Of course she’s cold, but at least she has food. Right? I see her pull some of that dried meat out and start to chew. She has some cans in there too, doesn’t she have a can opener?

“Well, I have to get to maintenance. I’ll be back real quick. Ok?”

She mumbles, “Ok.”

I sigh and set about my chores. Everything is fine, as usual. The whole time I’m working she’s all I can think about. Maybe if I just let her into the airlock? It’ll be warmer, at least. I can give her things if I’m careful.

But no, I can’t do that. Obviously if I open my door while she’s IN the airlock whatever she’s carrying will just worm it’s way inside and I could be dead within a week. But maybe that’s ok. Doesn’t she deserve this place more than me?

I’m manning the air pump when I lose it. I dash my toolbox across the floor and slump to the ground. I can’t just LEAVE her out there. Shit. Maybe I can seal off an area of the bunker. I could make her up one of the spare rooms, there are enough. As long as I close the room’s vent off it’ll only exchange air with the outside, through the filters, and not contaminate the rest of the bunker.

It’ll have to work. I’m starting to feel pretty good about the idea when I take a seat at the monitors. It occurs to me that she hasn’t asked me once if she could come in. Although it’s only been a couple days, maybe she’s too polite. Heh. Who’d have thought the last kid on Earth would be a sweet one?

I’m about to hit the intercom when I spot some movement on the other camera feed.

Two men are stomping through the mud. They look starved and ragged. I remember what May had said about her parents. Could these be the ones that did the deed? Were things so bad out there hunting children was a valid preoccupation? Maybe it was the bag she was dragging around. I can’t imagine what food is worth.

Ok…so no time for my original plan. I have to save May. Which means I either let her in now or head out there and kill them both. It’s a good thing I’ve been taking care of my pistol.

Theories are abundant about the events of yesterday, and so are the issues. The guys were definitely violent, and according to Oleg and the rest of the crew, new to the area. This leads to the first question. There were a number of people living in that neighborhood. Were they still there, killed, or did they move on after being pushed out? Any of these are possible. If they stayed, they probably had to pay some form of protection, probably had to give up quite a bit of what they had built up in terms of food and energy resources. That’s not a good thing for anyone to do. If they had left, Oleg thinks they would have passed by to warn the project. They were friendly with the community, and had reached out to them time and again. Leaving without a warning seemed out of character for that relationship. That left them dead, an option Oleg didn’t want to consider. There were five families in that neighborhood. Nobody would come in and just kill that many people, how could they?

Next issue was how far did the territory of this new group reach? The roads we would take to the Naval yards skirted that neighborhood, what if they sat on that road waiting to ambush travelers? Should we go further south around, or would that waste too much gas?

They would also have to work towards fortifying more now than on other projects which could extend the life support efforts. Less focus on the power network, less focus on the computers. More need for metal. Metal is heavy, hard to bring back to the facility. Needs more power, which means more focus on the biodiesel production. More scavenging, more exposure.

So they began planning the trip. And this is where I insisted I come.

“No.” Their reply. “You can barely hold yourself upright.”

I was laying down, I had to admit. I tried to sit up, and it was a slow and laborious process, but I got there, dammit.

“I’m going.”

“No. You aren’t well enough, and its up to us to risk ourselves. You’re our guest.”

“I’m a reporter, and I need to get the full story. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

“You could have cracked ribs.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“She’ll be hard to move in an attack. We can’t do it.”

“I’m the only one here with survival training. You guys are just reading it from a book you found in the library.”

“We can’t.”

I’m summarizing a bit. There was more to the discussions, but when I got that out of them, well, their reply didn’t start with a no, so I must have been wearing them down.

“I’ve broken ribs and been training again in three days. They taught me how to deal with the pain. This is nothing.”

They looked around the room at each other.

“We’re going to have to build up our defenses, both here and on the vehicles before we go.”

“Two days. We’ll see how you are, Lori.”

So I’m going. No way I’m not. Time to help them prepare.

Most survivors headed south when the illusion of a governing body faded. We were told for months that help was on the way – first it was FEMA, then the Army Corps of Engineers, then the Red Cross. Nobody came. Help splintered off into self-interested enclaves. They’re still out there: raiding, pillaging. Every town I come across, I can feel them a step behind. Drawing nearer. Stalking.

The back door to the theater hangs on its hinge and I walk inside. Burnt aisles. That odor of molten plastic. Celluloid turned to ash. A pair of skeletons sit in the back row, their heads rolled back, laughing faces frozen in time. Little to take from the concession stand but some sealed bags of popcorn and a dusty box of candy. A lonely projectionist’s pornography collection survived the fire in a filing cabinet. As I thumb through it, a light bulb shatters on the floor behind me, nearly knocking me out of my seat as I twist around and fumble for my pistol…

But I look, and there is nothing. It’s only gravity. Perhaps it’s the building, long unseen by man, trying to say hello. Come inside. See the latest post-apocalyptic thriller. Marvel at its irony.

The past is written in the aisles. A man takes the girl he’s going to marry to a theater. They see a movie but don’t watch, focusing all their attention on each other. She goes down on him halfway through the trailers.

Concentrate. Try to remember her face. She wore a skirt, right? She smelled like…

Her name was…

No… Don’t let me forget. Take everything else, but not this…

I leave the theater and head back down the road towards my car. Little tread left on these boots now – steep curves carved into the heels. Leather patched with duct tape. Every corpse looted, every store pillaged. Somewhere, someone is hoarding shoes and leaving the entire world to walk on rags.

A cooler lies in the street ahead. I step closer, drawing my knife, kneeling down and gently pushing the blade between it and the ground. No traps underneath. I move to open the lid–

–The blow to my back rattles me. I’m doubled over on the ground before I can react to a kick to my stomach. My diaphragm spasms. I can’t draw in a breath. I look up and see the figure with a baseball bat about to strike again, so I throw up my arms right before it can connect with my skull. I gasp.

I can’t tell if it hurts. All I can do is throw my legs out and hope for the best. I feel my boot connect with something; in the brief period of clarity in what’s going on, I can see that it worked. The figure drops to the ground and I grab the pistol from my waistband and line up with whoever’s in front of me. One shot goes off and my ears ring from the weapon’s concussive blast.

Red droplets turn into cakes in the dust and the building behind my target is splattered with red and pink. The figure falls lifeless before me, one eye glazed over, the other missing. Wild, scraggly hair matted down with blood; a few heavy spurts from the gaping wound before the heart goes still.

I get up, scanning the area around me for anyone else. The pistol shakes in my hand. The hematoma forming on my arm. After the initial shock wears off, the pain seeps in. I crush a chemical cold pack from my first aid kit and hold it to my arm. No broken bones or ruptured skin, at least. I’ve had to stitch myself together with dental floss and a bent sewing needle. A little bump is nothing to complain about.

The gunshot will have alerted anyone else in the area, so I drag my attacker’s body into an alley and strip him bare. His clothes look worse off than mine, but the blanket he wore like a cloak is warm and inviting. I wrap it around myself and paw through the rest of his belongings – nothing but a knife, chipped along the edge.

Minutes pass. Nobody’s here. Back to the cooler. Nothing inside when I flip the lid open; traps like this are commonplace now. I need to stay more alert.

The cold pack numbs the pain in my arm to a dull ache but sucks the heat out of me, and I draw the dead man’s blanket tighter across my chest.

There were gunshots in the streets last night. We had planned a scavenger run, but now it’s going to be incident investigation as well. Oleg is especially concerned. He has friends in the neighborhoods we heard the shots in. He offered to let me stay home, but I wasn’t afraid to take the trip. We suited up, bulletproof vests, shotguns and handguns. Guns were never exactly scarce in the States, but bullets were a precious resource. There may have been millions in stockpiles in various places, but those places were raided early on, and they aren’t making any more. It looked like Oleg’s gear was mostly police issued. I wondered how he got his hands on that, but it wasn’t time to ask. It was time to go out.

The vehicle we took was a diesel Mercedes Monica had modified to run biodiesel. The doors had been removed, as had the windshield and the roof. She’d plated the tires with some extra metal on the outside, and one bullet hole testified as to why. When I got here, Oleg said there were rough areas around here.

We headed south along a main road and then turned east into a residential area. It looked like a nice neighborhood once. Now, most of the homes showed significant damage and decay. Many windows were broken, some collapsed porches, and some were kept up. Our first stop was at one of these.

Monica stopped the car in the middle of the road, and we got out, keeping a close eye on all directions. Oleg alone went to the door. He knocked and waited. Then he called in, and nothing came back.

“Back in the car.”

We piled in, and Monica started moving again.

“Well, maybe they’re out.”

We wound our way further into the enclave, looks like the area was all one large development with about a dozen styles of homes. The winding streets felt like they must have been peaceful once.

“This area,” Oleg told me, “Used to support the college, the naval bases and industry further east, very professional.”

We came to another clean house. Again, the SWAT routine. Again, he knocked, and no one was home. Then a shot hit me. I flew forward a little bit, tripped on my feet and landed face forward in the street. Bastards shot me in the back. Where the fuck were they? Oleg picked me up fast and we rushed back to the car, but by the time we were seated, there were gunmen in front of and behind us. A leader stepped forward.

“We control this neighborhood now.”

“Who are you?” Oleg said. We all had guns drawn. Not a winnable situation.

“You’ll see. Now get the fuck out.”

The leader nodded and they opened up behind us.

We got to a safer spot, at least there was no place to hide, and they stopped and turned to me.

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah, a little freaked, but yeah.”

“Turn around, let’s see your back.”

I did. The bullet didn’t get through. It was a pretty small caliber. They had bigger weapons, it was a warning shot, but I thought those were usually fired into the air.

For now, they’re making me rest. I’ll be able to relate the discussions Oleg had with the rest of them later.

Now, we’re barely a step ahead of primitive man and information is life. The meek inherited a world that no longer coddled them, and it took them less than a year to begin eating each other. Men like that wretch back at the gas station? I see them everywhere I go: scared, starving…

Alone.

Evening approaches. One of my headlights is dead; I should change it the next time I find a spare bulb. There’s a condominium complex up ahead. I park outside the broken gate and reach into the back seat for my rifle.

It’s quiet. The deep purple glow of the sun through the clouds grows ever darker. I grab an empty backpack and head towards the first building I see. It’s locked; I work with my picks quickly before the light is completely gone.

It’s a haze inside. Nobody’s been in here for years. I shake my flashlight, giving it a charge before turning it on, the blue beam barely cutting through the cloud of dust.

The floor has a substrate of pest droppings and mold that skirts the edge of each wall. Each step crunches against peeling linoleum tile. Cabinets lay open, their interiors like twisted dioramas; a cluster of dead cockroaches, a tiny mouse skeleton pasted to a sprung mouse trap. Out of reflex I flip the switch on my Geiger counter, but the radiation has long dissipated. A can of kidney beans lays in one of the cabinets. I stuff it in my bag and open the refrigerator, and the sharp odor of rot hit his nostrils even through the particle mask.

I make my way through the condo. Other scavengers are a threat: starving, displaced wanderers willing to do anything to live for one more day. I rifle through the bedroom and the closet. Old clothes, moth-eaten and covered in rodent droppings; a few stale, dusty shirts. I could always use more shirts. A safe sits on the top shelf and takes me a while to crack, but when I do, there’s a pistol inside with two magazines filled with ammunition. Grimy dust sticks to the exposed bullets in the top of each magazine. The slide still works; maybe needs to be cleaned, but it’s in good condition. I tuck the weapon in my waistband and pull out the rest: a jewelry box containing what was once a small fortune in gold, several hundred dollars in cash, a bag of fossilized marijuana…

A couple in their thirties lived here. Professionals; mild-mannered, but indulgent upon small vices. There’s a certain intimacy here, things that weren’t spoken about outside of this house. I roll the bag of weed between my fingers and imagine what they must have been like…

It doesn’t matter. They’re dead. I’m like an archaeologist without a museum, collecting fragments of a world I’ll never see again, for no purpose other than refreshing what has become a vague and distant memory.

I pull out the wad of money and think to myself how people had once gone their entire lives seeking its acquisition: working for it, dying for it. They traded their bodies, their principles, their beliefs for it. It had once been the driving force for all of humanity. Now, as I light the fire for the evening, I watch the clumps of green, fibrous paper burn away. Their printed faces stare back at me in their final moments before becoming ash, filling me with a strange sense of dread.

It’s just paper now. Fuel for the fire.

In the firelight, the gun is cleaned. The can of beans is cooked. Urine is distilled into potable water. Daydreams of first dates, grasping for that levity. I look up at the ceiling and think back to the past. How much is memory and how much is imagination filling in the gaps? Did she have green eyes or blue? What was it you called her?

She just stands or sits in front of the front hatch camera. Sometimes she waves. Does she know I’m here? She’s dirty but not starved. She is skinny, very skinny, but not on the verge of death. How can she be out there?

After the plague? After everything that’s gone on out there? How could she be alive without any protective gear? How can she even EXIST?

She has to be a hallucination. I’ve already started hearing things. This has got to be the seclusion and depression setting in. There’s just no way she’s real. She can’t be real.

Can she?

She moves closer to the door and I bolt upright. I can’t see her anyway. She’s too small for the camera that close to the hatch door. I almost get up and run to the front door. I just want to see her for real.

The intercom buzzes with her little voice, “Hello?”

It’s distorted and cracked but it’s her. Or is it? I just can’t tell. Is this just more madness seeping forth? My hands are trembling as they reach for the button. I know I shouldn’t say anything. If she’s just a delusion I can’t give into it, no matter how tempting.

But what if she IS real? I can’t just let her rot out there.

I can barely manage a whisper, “H-hi there.”

She leaps back from my response and stares at the camera in surprise and fear. Then she smiles. A little girl smile. She claps her hands together excitedly and runs off.

“Wait! Don’t go! Don’t…” I shout into the intercom. But she’s already gone. I can’t spot her on any of the other cameras. I sit back and sigh, running my hand down my face. Should I go out after her? I have a chemical suit and as long as I cycle the airlock coming and going I should be fine.

Shit. If she’s a carrier I can’t just BRING her in here. Could she be immune? I certainly don’t know how to test for it or treat it. I can clean a bullet wound well enough, sure. But blood work and medicine and all that crap? Shit.

She can’t be here alone. There’s just no way. If she brings her family back they’ll ALL want in. I can’t just throw them some food like they were ducks and tell them to go.

Although it’s not like they can force their way in. I’m not sure if I could stand by and watch people starve to death on my front porch. I never liked killing people. It’s why I preferred to work with machines. Make the guns work so someone else can fire them.

It’s a couple hours before she’s back. She’s dragging a bag with her. It’s a big duffel bag. It looks like it takes all her strength just to move it. No wonder it took her so long to return. She plops it down by the front hatch where its dry.

The way the front hatch is built there’s a long overhang and a lip at the end on the top and bottom. It works great for backing trucks in. Throw up an air-tight seal and you’re good to go for transporting goods or passengers. She starts pulling stuff out of the bag.

Blankets and some food. I use the term “food” loosely. Canned stuff and maybe some dried meat. I don’t want to know what kind of meat it is. It looks like she has a tent too, but she doesn’t bother trying to set it up.

She hops over to the intercom and says, “Hi again. My name is May. Can I stay here?”

I nearly fall out of my chair grabbing at the microphone, “Yeah, yeah! That’s cool. Go ahead.”

She responds through the electric crackle, “What’s your name?”

“Uh, Jack. My name’s Jack,” I say, trying to remember how to talk to another living being. “What are you doing all alone, May? Where’s your mom or dad?”

She’s quick to respond and I find it a little disturbing, “They’re dead.”

I don’t know why I asked that. The answer was pretty obvious. Lousy conversation starter. She steps away from the intercom and sits in her pile of dirty blankets. After a moment of thought she pulls a piece of jerky out and starts to chew on it.

I really hope that’s animal jerky.

She pulls what looks like a water damaged story book out of her pack and flips through the pages. Then she sighs and puts it down. Even from the camera feed I can tell it’s beyond readable. May hops up and goes to the intercom.

“Mr. Jack? I’m getting sleepy, can you read me a story?” she asks, as innocent as a sunrise. “My Papa used to when I couldn’t sleep.”

I’m not sure if she was starting to cry, but I know I was having a hard time not losing it. Fuck. I want to let her in so badly. She doesn’t deserve this. If anyone should be safe in here it’s May. But if I open that door and let her in it could kill me.

I hit the button and speak into the intercom, “Yeah, May. I can tell you a story.”

God help me.

Across this plateau, the land is dead. Greenery reduced to small patches of weeds; even the hardiest of plants beginning to die from a world bathed in endless gloom. The trees stand lifeless, desiccated; their skeletal branches stretching towards the sky like some futile plea for salvation from above.

It’s difficult to tell whether the changes in the mirror are from my age, or the weathered effects of this blasted world. There is constant concern that I will succumb to scurvy, or rickets, or that the antibiotics in my kit are long past their use.

I stop briefly to eat, stepping out into the cold. It’s eerily quiet now; I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard the sound of birds. When the radiation swept across the world, they were the first to go. I remember seeing their rotten bodies littering the ground for miles.

There is only the sound of my chewing over the empty, blowing wind. I wonder if it’s like this everywhere, if places like the Amazon still exist or if the great kelp beds have been reduced to dead water. Perhaps somewhere, in some other part of the world, someone like me is asking these same questions.

The temperature begins to drop as midday passes. On the road again, I spot derelict cars, long stripped of anything of value, merely the frames left behind like giant steel skeletons. There’s an old gas station sticking out amidst the dreary landscape. I pull over a short distance away and step out of the car, and right away I catch the lingering scent of a recent fire. There are others here.

I reach in the back seat and pull out the rifle tucked under several blankets, carefully peel the protective tape from the breach and barrel, and wiggle the bolt back and forth to make sure dust hasn’t gotten into it. I load the weapon and approach the station slowly, creeping up to the employee’s entrance. The door is locked from the inside. It’s a typical five-pin deadbolt – easy enough to pick. A few minutes of work and I’m in.

It’s dark, but light shines faintly through the front portion of the station. To my left, a restroom; the toilet is dry, encrusted with old feces; the sink inoperable. A roll of toilet paper rests nearby, a gleaming white treasure amidst the refuse. I grab it and continue on to the front of the station, trying to remain silent. The floor crunches under my feet: dead leaves and broken glass. I can feel my heart begin to pound in my chest from the sound.

“Who’s there?!” The voice sends a jolt through my body, but I don’t panic. I stay silent, holding my breath, taking a step backwards with the rifle pointed out in front of me. A small, gaunt figure steps forward, leaning on some kind of stick. I catch a flash of him briefly in the light: sores on his face, patches of hair missing from his scalp and beard. He leans against the wall and waves the stick in the air. “Get out of my shop!”

I take another step back, my weapon steady in my hands. The figure lunges forward with the stick and smacks the wall with a clatter, and it rattles his frail arms. He tries to steady himself, but loses his footing under a piece of broken glass and stumbles backwards. Right then, I step forward and point my rifle at him and say, “Easy…”

The man looks up at me like a wild animal, fear and anger on his face in equal measure. He spits on the floor in contempt. “You people, you all the same!”

“I’m not here to hurt you.” I say.

He tries to get up, gripping at the wall but finding no means to steady himself. He slides back down, sobbing. “Oh god… just take it. Just end it here. Do it quick.”

I kneel down in front of him, setting my rifle aside, extending my hand to help him up, but he jerks his arm away and forces himself to his feet. Broken glass sticks in his hand but he appears not to notice. “They come… they come and take everything.”

”Who?” I ask.

“Men like you. They come and they take all my food.”

I try to reassure him that I’m not here to steal from him, but he ignores me. He grabs his stick and limps along, and I follow him to his makeshift living space behind the counter. A few bottles of stagnant water lay strewn about, their contents brown, obviously filled from puddles outside. The filthy pillow on the floor rust-colored from old blood. The sores on his face are like burns, his skin sloughing off in sheets. He is a man not long for the world and he knows it.

All I can do is leave him to his fate.

This wasn’t the only source of solar panels. They took some from houses, some from public sites, I think they even had a number of solar panels from calculators wired up. When I saw some of these small ones Oleg simply smiled.
“Every little bit helps.”

We then went into the bowels of the buildings. There I met Pawel Raczick, an Eastern European engineer who was in the States on a temporary visa when things happened and he was stuck. He was working on a diesel generator which had been on the property, had converted it to biodiesel production. The generator was not running during the day with the amount of power the solar panels were providing. They tried to run it only overnight, to keep their computer links active. I was actually talking to a significant percentage of the people in the world who had an email address right here.

Pawel took us up to a greenhouse of sorts he had created in the central atrium of one of the buildings. Here, he had constructed many frames which held curtains of sheet plastic tubes filled with water, an algae farm. From these, and several other sites he had on the location, he harvested algae and made biodiesel fuel from them.
Pawel was a small man, humble, with graying straggly hair and a bent pair of glasses. Everywhere he went, the smell of a workshop followed, the smell of lubricants and oil.

We met then for lunch, the biggest meal of the day for all of them, and over lunch they talked about progress and problems, a free exchange of knowledge all in the drive for a better and stronger community. They also spoke about capacity, something on everybody’s mind, and if they could bring in anybody else from the surrounding area and sustain their needs with food and power production. They talked about digging up one of the parking lots to make a field for planting, but they weren’t sure if there was enough fuel for the machines to do it, and how fertile the ground would be afterwards. Intelligent sustainability was the most common thread of the meal, and I began to understand, every meal.